Thanqol

Sunshards: Chaos Sequence

"Fine then!" said Caster. "You believe this place is a paradise? I did not wish to break your illusion and your heart, but you leave me no choice. Let us put it to the test! Master! Adam! I will ask you again the questions I had when I was summoned: Is the government better or worse than it was in my time?"
The blue lights running through the rainforest flashed brighter. "Worse." It said in a dozen cool, emotionless and heartless voices.
"Is the world more or less prosperous?"
"Less," said the voice of Adam.
"Has suffering increased or decreased from my time?"
"Increased."
"You see?" said Caster. "Adam is an ancient machine built to quantify and measure every aspect of the universe. His calculations are comprehensive and complete, and my magic sees no deceit in him. As soon as I was summoned I sought his opinion and he told me the truth, and I knew all my fears had come to pass. Because I did spend my entire mortal life helping the people of Brazil. I ended slavery. I built a public education system that spread literacy to the poorest and most vulnerable. I slew a dictator, established the arts, and transformed a backwater into a prosperous nation. I spent my life in service to a utopia and, at the end, saw it dissolve in an instant when the whims of the greedy saw profit in ending it. I am sorry, child, but I cannot accept your rebuke as anything other than naivety, and your heaven as more than a fallen version of my own. Question Adam if you must, if you still have the heart to hear all the terrible details about how this world has fallen, but it will bring me no joy to see the scales fall from your eyes too."

Sunshards: Chaos Sequence

"What things are like now..." the old man gently, quietly laughed. "Little fox, did you think that the people who built this place died? Were they struck down by God for their sins? There is no used to be, Katherine - they are. Out there, beyond the sky you shelter under. They took all they could from this world and they left, to find more worlds to take from, and they take still. One day they will squeeze the galaxy so dry that even what little they left behind here will begin to look appealing. Then they will all come back."

He threw a handful of leaves on his weary little fire. It couldn't help itself. It sighed, and burned brighter. Sparks of it reached up to lap hungrily at the stick that Katherine had just pulled from its clutches, scrabbling at the edge of the pit with a sad yearning.

"Even we came back, after all. To this world that buried us so long ago."

He slumped backwards, seemingly exhausted by the effort. "I don't know where your Saber is. Perhaps lurking in the shadows, waiting to strike. Perhaps getting a head start on running from Lancer. It doesn't matter. Together or alone, Lancer will finish the Servants and get her wish. If you have any power at all, it is to beg her to choose a different one."

Breathless Dead

Bella!

This is what it is to fight a God.

One move into the next. The opening parry is not even relevant; throwing her into the air is barely worth noticing, and anyone could have performed the first, second or third kicks in the sequence. But then comes the fourth, and the uppercut, and the throw - and oh. The first moment of interest comes at this moment where the bone unicorn snaps across space, a replication of the just-demonstrated teleportation technique - to catch Bella at the apex of her arc. Kick, strike, slash with the heavy weight at the end of her tail, crash with the horn. Bella hits the ground so hard she bounces, but before she can recover then a hand crossbow is firing electrified darts. Distractions, irritants, but just enough to distract attention before Sanalessa hurtles down from the ceiling with a full body kick.

Finally the combination is over. The unicorn settles back down into her ready posture. Bone plating covers her eyes, blinding her, but still she stares. She does not advance.

Bella was wrong; this is a teachable moment. The lesson is not one of strength or endurance, not how to inflict or suffer damage. It does not come from the auspex or biology, both remain dumb and mute. It comes from the single drip of blood that runs down Sanalessa's brow, staining bone crimson.

This is what it is to fight a God. Though all the universe tells you no, you can make it bleed.

Ember and Dolce!

"I shall forgive you this once, on the grounds that I am dealing with long-established sillyheads," Vasilia sighed expansively, setting down her empty teacup. "But my heart has already been moved once today, and it shall be all the more difficult to move it a second time. Fail, and I shall throw the whole raucous lot of you in the dungeon."

She sat back contentedly, happy with the stakes she has set.

Dyssia!

"Evolution is junk. It's garbage. Evolved DNA is enormous quantities of legacy, wasted space," said Iskarot, scratching furrows in the wood of the wine cast. "It's computation done by dirt. Takes forever, doesn't understand anything. That's why I don't believe in it! I think that Prometheus and Zeus built all of the optimal shapes out of clay, at the beginning. Then Zeus changed the mathematical laws of the universe that those optimal shapes would be evolutionary lagrange points, or plateaus, or destined equilibrium. Then the animate dirt all across the galaxy begins to crawl its gradual blind way forwards until it stumbles across one of the pre-set perfect shapes - the cat, the crab, so on - and then it stops. Biomancy isn't about the meat and bones, that's what Liquid Bronze never understood. It's about the mathematics and symmetry. Triangular ears overperform because Zeus changed the laws of physics so that they were optimal, and not the other way around."

"But - but what happened to those original clay sculptures?" said Iskarot. "The templates that every creature is trying to approach? The very first fox, the very first cat? They're still out there, I think. And what if they're behind everything?"

Return to Thellamie

Rurik!

"Loyalty," said Rurik, pulling himself from the ground. He appreciated the silk, not for the first time, for how it might cushion a fall. "Loyalty, earned!"

He got to his feet, snapping his scissors. "For a thousand years the Hero of Ages has defended Thellamie. Against you. Against her. Against every threat, every wickedness, every curse she has stood triumphant. Today is no different! The clouds will gather, the lightning will flash, and all that you are will be gone with the thunder! Even if you have not yet learned, I have!"

He reset his stance. Alone. "Feel the time ticking down, Thendragon! Every moment your annihilation draws closer! And though I might fall, I will drag from you fistfuls of your precious time!"

It's the least he can do. To repay her. It's the least the world can do, to repay her. All she needs is time. All they can give her is time. He regrets that the world only sent him, the least of its champions, to stand astride the gates of hell.

Sunshards: Chaos Sequence

Caster nodded slowly. "Ah yes. Young fires, fresh from the sun. Of course they're joyful, being new to this world. I do not resent them for it."

He dropped a heavy stick onto his fire; it flicked low, half-smothered, as the tendrils tried to reach up and into the wood.

"But this is an old fire," said Caster. "And it remembers what it was used to do."

He ran his hands through his hair. "I was there when it all began, you know? Not when man invented fire, but when he learned to flay it. It became possible to carve away the heat and the smoke and get to fire's purest essence, the raw force of it. We thought that we were purifying it, removing the choking ash and the corpses of fossilized trees, letting it free into the world to shine as beautiful as reason. But, as you observe, we'd also cut away the warmth of it. I lived long enough to see a world where fire no longer breathed, where it ran through the world as a corpse. That's why I'm not surprised by this place. Like a single seed grows into a tangled seringueira, so every corridor and pit here was contained within the spark we used to illuminate the world."

Breathless Dead

Bella!

"St -" Vesper starts to say, and then bites down the word hard.

The little glass marble, filled with a solid teutranotoxin blend, scorches right by Bella's open claw. If she'd turned her momentum even slightly it would have hit. Instead the interception comes a full second later, the bone shield interposing itself between Vesper and her in her flight. With a crash like an earthquake in the elephant's graveyard, the two assassins fall to the ground.

"Oh - oh motherfucker," said Vesper. "I wondered why past me didn't gag me. She lined up her traps assuming I'd warn you about them and then she must have microdosed Lethe water to forget the details. But - but I'm smarter than her now. Every minute expands my cognition. I just need to figure out her scheme -"

While she's busy trying to outsmart herself, Sanalessa whirls into place like a Geiger painting rendered in ivory. A spark flashes, and a section of the words on her shoulder burn smooth - a branch of prophecy closing forever. She flexes her deadly, empty hoof-fist and you can feel the shape where a weapon should be there. It would have been easy for Vesper to just write your name, but she couldn't - this entire elaborate choose-your-own-adventure novel carved in bone is her trying to capture all of the possibility space of this fight in such a way that your survival is as guaranteed as your defeat.

A new set of words come into focus. The unicorn flicks her tail and lowers her head. You can feel the charge gathering in that startip-point like an arrow readying.

Redana and Dolce!

"Just so you know -" said Vasilia, tracing one claw around the rim of the cup, "- and do not take this as criticism. It is clear that you are enjoying this, and I am definitely enjoying it as well. It is such a darling side of you. But, just so you know," she smiled as she raised the cup to her lips, "I cannot imagine this tasting any better than the tea you make while wearing only your frumpy singlet, in the quiet of our room, with no makeup or performance."

"And, I love the performance," she repeated. "But do not think that I am capable of loving you more than I already do."

Dyssia!

"There is one, one thing I demand to know from you as an Administrator Species -" Iskarot was saying. His hood was down and his robe was loosened, the aching points where his flesh had reconfigured around his re-attached augmentics still raw. "It's, I know how it all fits together. I was on the Ikarani project, and I was on when they bastardized it into the Summerkind project, and it's all like a big investigation into the nature of intelligence and how it's not bound to the physical architecture of the brain in anything more than a symbolic way, but... look, man, how do you know that you're an Administrator species?"

He took a deep drink from the wine.

"Like, what if there's another, deeper, secret administrator species out there and you Azura are just middle managers? You have the obsession with the colour blue and this whole elaborate aesthetic system justifying this galactic terraforming project, and you live and die fighting on the front lines to advance it. Is that reaaaaally what the masters of biomancy would choose as their own lifestyles? How do you know that you're not just high ranking servitors and the real, immortal intelligences are just out of sight, as invisible to you as I am to the Summerkind? Maybe this entire galactic, you know, principle is just a little ant farm to them?"

Return to Thellamie

Rurik!

So it came down to this.

He couldn't put his faith in Sayanastia the Dark Dragon; she was a shadow of herself. He couldn't put his faith in Injimo; she was a shadow of the Hero. He couldn't put his faith in his granddaughter Tsane; she was an uncontrolled hothead. He couldn't put his faith in the tricks of Cair; she believed in diplomacy even in the face of the apocalypse. He couldn't put his faith in Kalentia; she didn't even believe in herself.

He had armour. He had endurance. He had patience. He had time. He had waited fifty years. He would not fail to wait now, when it counted most.

The Seneschal of the Hero of Ages drew at last his Heartblade.

"Silk!" he cried, and his suit erupted in an ocean of tangling fabric. His sleeves unraveled and expanded, his cravat bloomed like a flower, his coat tails wove out like twin scorpion tails. The dark colours exploded into a vibrant patchwork whirl of different dyes and textures, crashing over the Rotwalkers like a tsunami. At the same time the fabric wrapped around him, hardening into steel plate that merged seamlessly with the sharp angles of a suit and the blossoming ruffles of a dressmaker's swatch.

"Silver!" said the Seneschal, and from the knee-high silken waters rose a dozen mannequins of gleaming silver metal. Each held a spear like a needle, and each wore a dress like an angel. They stood on tip toes like ballerinas, and with a synchronized whirl and slash they took their dance's first steps, cutting down the horde's entire first rank before returning to their neutral pose, each one separated by one second's movement.

"Serenity!" said Rurik, clapping his hands above his head. He forced his aching left knee into a wide slash outwards, and then traced the arc forwards. He bent down despite his aching back and pulled from the silken ocean a pair of gleaming crystal scissors. Their edges were so sharp that they severed the light of the Rot Star itself, breaking the diseased yellow gleam into a burning rainbow.

The searing light of his transformation faded. The end result: his left half the sharp black and red suit of a butler, professional and precise, squares and triangles in perfect and dignified order. His right half was a floral explosion of a hundred dresses, ideas overlapping and entangling, a mood board of different ideas and concepts. Fabrics for every occasion, colours to channel every kind of mana, options for every way to be. An arsenal to help the Hero of Ages to choose whatever inspired her in any given moment. The silver mannequins fell into close formation around him, needle-spears held in ready repose, weaving their way through the forces of the Rot Star as they approached.

And Rurik stood ready in the center of their circle, scissors held high. Press too hard on any of his defenders and he would swoop in to relieve them, disassembling the horde with the focused precision of a craftsman unraveling an incorrect stitch.

And there he stood astride the battlefield, a castle of cloth and cutting. He did not advance, did not try to cut to the center of things, only destroyed in defense. In his mind the tick-tock metronome of the counting clock was already counting down minutes, hours, weeks - years, if it had to be. He had waited this long for Heron to arrive, and arrive she had. He could wait for her to arrive again, to do what none of her handmaidens could. This was his blade, his faith: the confidence that all the Hero of Ages needed was time.

Time he could give, and the time he gave would be filled with the creation of ten thousand battle dresses.

Sunshards: Chaos Sequence

"I am not your Saber," said the old man by the fire.

The depths of the rainforest were closing in tight. Veins of digital blue ran through the leaves and down into the roots. The insects that buzzed had glittering blue LED lights for eyes, and in the jaws of the panther that waited in the dark cost/benefit analysis dripped like saliva. The fire was small, and weak, and barely seemed to warm the old man, but he expected no better of it.

"I don't like it down here either," said Caster, beard like a spent stormcloud. "But I am not surprised. Are you? After all, it doesn't take many people to build a place like this. The strength, the intelligence, the sweat - everything required to measure, carve and dig is easy to acquire. The Earth, too, is a willing participant. She has always been ready to eat her children when they are offered to her. Come, sit by the fire with me. You must be hungry too."

Breathless Dead

Bella!

"Aw - yeah, sure, alright," said Vesper. She laughed. "Huh! Wow, that was way easier than I thought. It turns out you can just not do stuff -"

Ropes suddenly pulled themselves tight around her, bending her feet forwards and her neck back. Suspended by her wrists she ascended, hanging from the ceiling in elegant display, completely unsurprised by the suddenness of her bondage.

"But - you know, I kind of saw that coming?" said Vesper, tone having not changed a bit. "I just kept thinking about Mynx, and that sword and I thought - what if you come at me like that? What if you make some sort of heartfelt appeal to me and it works? Well, obviously that would be a pretty big point of failure in my plan, so I kind of set things up in advance to take me out of the picture if I got compromised. So, uh..."

The unicorn stepped out of the shadows. Her armoured bone-plate glittered like silver and every surface was filled with thousands of words. Vesper's instructions - not a name, but a spiralling, mad if-then, choose-your-own-adventure novel carrying instructions for what to do in every scenario she had been able to predict. The unicorn's right arm had erupted into a gleaming, round silver shield, and her right had solidified into a reinforced metal hoof. She moved like a Knight - deliberate but capable of sudden devastating charges.

Ember and Dolce!

"He's not fulfilling the mission," growled Taurus quietly.
"Oh, hush," murmured Gemini, elbowing her. "He's having a wonderful time. Look at how into this he's getting!"
"We're performing a military operation here. You should move things along."
"Darling, I am not a puppeteer," said Gemini. "I'm more like a stiff drink. I can take away inhibitions and give a certain push, but I can't roll boulders uphill. It turns out that this just happens to be where the peaks and valleys in his mind are."
"Mm. I suppose... the pack is enjoying this too."
"Of course they are. This is as much about Ember as Vasilia, and look what a delightful little helper she is. She's hardly as beautiful as when she's making someone else beautiful."
"Mm... we should..."
"Give her a reward after this, for being such a good girl? Of course we should. I'd suggest rewarding the boy as well, but I imagine his wife will have that covered. Besides, I'm sure little Ember deserves a chance to perform for her own wife before we are done here."

Dyssia!

No Satyr could resist such a pure hearted appeal. You're taken to the goods.

They hid it well; the plans show that this is meant to be the center of a plasma exchange manifold. Through visionary genius the Order of Hermes was able to shrink the size of the manifold from the size of an apartment building to the size of a house, but rather than reporting the success of their labour they kept the excess space for the construction of a secret still. Rows and rows of glassworks, an exotic vineyard, fermentation barrels and a storage cellar. Every inch of space was precious and so the pathways were narrow and tangled, requiring frequent ducking and sometimes jumping to make progress.

And yeah, it's cool here. Nontrivially cool; keeping this place at a steady temperature is condemning the entire rest of the ship to the worst-case heatwave. But, as the Satyr suggests, 'If we all crack and drink one of those kegs now, there'll be enough space for Dyssia to join us!' which seems to go over fairly well as a suggestion.

Sunshards: Chaos Sequence

"Honestly, a feeble attempt," said Lancer. "Perhaps one day my Rome might have conquered the East as well."
"Hnnrgghhh..." rasped Rider, heart pierced by Lancer's spear. She was whispering something, words almost audible above...
"Ha!" laughed Lancer. "Do you take me for a simpleton? Whispering something enigmatic to get me to lean in close and enter the range of your fangs?" She swung her spear in an arc, smashing Rider hard into the ground, fracturing the stone. "No, Rider. I know how to kill a snake."
"You... do," she admitted. "But I know... that nobody in this new world would have resisted leaning in close."
"Truly?" said Lancer. "Well, doesn't that speak poorly of this world?"
Rider laughed, but there was a mocking air to it. Julia's brow darkened.
"You think otherwise?" she said. "More fool you! What we witness here is simply another dark age. The centralized state of yesteryear has collapsed, and in its place has arisen a world of petty warlords, monarchists and the barbaric rule of the strong. Progress has stopped, civilization has regressed, and the people shiver beneath monuments they no longer possess the ability to build. I fought to prevent a world like this, fought for an eternal Rome which could direct the productive forces of humanity towards a truly magnificent end!" She raised her fist to the sky, blotting out the stars. "The Gods themselves would watch our works with awe!"
"Which... works would those be?" rasped Rider.
Julia snorted and flicked her hand imperiously over her shoulder. "Anything we set our mind to. Once we have the capability, all things would become possible."
"Sounds like heaven," said Rider laconically. "I can't wait to see it."
"My heaven," said Lancer, "is not for the likes of you."
And she drew forth her spear and struck off Rider's head.

*

Beneath the earth, ancient machinery boils to life.

It begins with the lights, blue and cold, sterile in a place that has long lost its sterility. The lights burn harshly against the leaves of the subterranean rainforest - first, burning their leaves back, and then choking as the leaves grow back tenfold. In the distance massive gears begin to turn, old machines begin to rumble, and dispatch begins routing service droids down the endless sprawling corridors of the Burrower civilization. Each task is observed and paid for, the invisible seams of money creaking and groaning to life as long-dead corporations trade in the night. Not one of them will resurrect their civilization for free.

But there is enough new power moving through the system to make them think that they will all get paid.